


Venus of Urbino

by fallen_woman



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-15
Updated: 2010-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-06 07:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_woman/pseuds/fallen_woman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just what was in those letters? Betty, international model of mystery. Spoilers for "Wee Small Hours"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Venus of Urbino

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fic](http://fallen-woman.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [mad men](http://fallen-woman.livejournal.com/tag/mad+men)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **sleeping beauty** _

Title: Venus of Urbino  
Fandom: Mad Men  
Rating: PG-13  
Word Count: 980  
Summary: Just what was in those letters? Betty, international model of mystery. Spoilers for "Wee Small Hours"

Sally's favorite food is macaroni and cheese, and Betty is trying.

It's early afternoon; Sally and Bobby are at the library with Carla. Baby Gene is sleeping in his pram, in the living room. Betty twists the dial on the stove, waits for the iron coils to heat. She will only make a small batch—she doesn't want to encourage Sally to overeat.

There's a catalogue on the dining table. She sits on the edge of the chair, like she can't decide whether she wants to stay, and cups her right hand against the side of her neck, palm to pulse, while her left hand drifts through pages of blurry dresses.

The pot, half-full, is waiting on the counter. She gets up to check the stove top. The front burner is just beginning to blush. Betty frowns at that turn of phrase. She's been doing that more often lately, salvaging bits of beauty throughout the day just so she has something to write about in her letters to Henry.

She writes her letters on thick paper the shade of congealed silver-blue — one couldn't quite tell the color. The stationery feels masculine, authoritative, like it could contain official business. Betty sets the pot of water on the stove, glides to the study, and pulls a fresh leaf of paper from the drawer.

Walking through the living room, she smiles at baby Gene before sitting down at the dining table. Today, she selects an enamel fountain pen with blue ink.

_"Dear Henry."_

The nuns at her school used to scold her for her poor penmanship: skittish g's, k's that jutted out like broken bones. One day, after a glance at her report card, her mother rolled a carpet of white paper across the living room floor and made her repeat lines of cursive until her writing smoothed itself out. Eventually, halfway from the fireplace to the front door, it had. Now, Betty's script is all slender loops and gentle slants; she couldn't write messy if she tried.

_"I hope this finds you well."_

The water in the pot hisses — she pours in the hard macaroni, breathing in the curls of steam before placing the lid on.

_"The weather is agreeable today."_

Her mind blanks. She swerves her head, flicking her eyes from the walls to the floor to the windows. Describe something, she murmurs to herself. Anything. The cabinets are polished. The air smells expectant and mournful. I am wearing a very pretty dress.

_"It's the sort of weather that gives you sweet dreams. I had one yesterday, about my time in Italy. I suppose it was more of an elongated memory than anything else."_

Baby Gene cries out. She rocks him, burps him. As soon as he settles in sleep again, she rushes to the stove—the water is churning underneath the pot lid—and drains the macaroni. Her nose crinkles when she pours the cheese packet over the steaming pasta curls (for some reason, Sally prefers the instant kind). The smell of cheddar cheese has always seemed tawdry to her.

The kitchen clock shudders out another hour; she looks at the time, then forgets it.

_"One weekend—it was the same time of year that it is now—a man came to Giovanni's studio. He arrived with a woman who was several years older than me. Or maybe she was taller than me."_

Betty shuts her eyes, pressing her elbows to the table. She conjures a hazy image of a visit months ago to Don's office, when she was hugely pregnant. There was a secretary of some sort, not the thin-lipped one. Red hair, hips—what was her name?

_"Her name was Rosalind."_ Betty leans forward and relaxes her grip on the pen. _"She was very white and very red. The man and her walked around the studio, looking at the dresses. She pointed at me and said she wanted that one. 'It'll have to be let out everywhere, though.' Giovanni was pleased. _

_"The man had a meeting, and she wanted me to entertain her that evening. She didn't know the language. We rented a vespa, and she drove. It's a curious feeling, a woman's hair blowing in your face. I've never thought of it that way."_

Betty gets up to plate the macaroni, shrouding the dishes in paper towels. The smell of the melted cheese still vexes her.

_"We went to the Uffizi. It was near closing time, so we didn't have to wait in line. 'I just want to see this one painting,' she said running and when we came to it she grabbed my wrist. We spent the fifteen minutes staring, a little breathless, until the guards ushered us out. _

_"At her hotel, she kissed me on the cheek too long. She said that any man who proposed to her in front of that painting would have her forever. 'That's what a man should do. He should be able to look at a whole gallery of pictures and find the one that makes you ache.' _

_"I haven't thought of her in nine years. She must be married now. Isn't that strange?"_

When the doorbell rings, Betty sharply creases the stationery and tucks it into her purse before answering. Bobby and Sally burst in before Carla, dumping their books on the table. She tells them to go wash, then tells Carla to watch them because she has an errand to run.

Betty always keeps envelopes in her purse, nowadays. It's a quick drive to the post office, and as she slips the letter in the mail slot, her stomach wrenches with worry that she has somehow been inelegant.

Four days later, the reply comes. _"The painting was a woman on a couch — H."_

Yes, Betty thinks as she settles into bed next to Don. That's precisely it, she mouths, unsleeping undreaming, as the floor whispers with the weight of her husband dressing in the dark.


End file.
